Sue Polinsky's ConvergeSouth 2012 presentation on Nonprofit Online Fundraising tools

1. ONLINE FUNDRAISING ConvergeSouth
Oct. 12 2012
FOR NONPROFITS

2. TIPS FOR RAISING MONEY ONLINE
1. Ask for money for special projects or hot items, NOT for general support.
2. Set a deadline
3. Ask LOTS of people but do not spam (frequency matters)
4. Make the “ASK” the main message in your email (“call to action”)
5. Make sure recipients KNOW and LIKE the sender of the email (not “info”)
6. Use a great subject line: why are you asking?
7. Content is king: make the copy short & punchy; GIVE A LINK TO DONATE!
8. HTML emails generally get a better response
9. Content should be interesting and useful to readers
10. Ask everywhere you can (not just email)
11. Build a good list and update it
12. TEST YOUR EMAIL before sending
13. Integrate your email with your sig line, phone & events fundraising

3. WHO DONATES ONLINE?
 People under 35 may not have
checkbooks
 Using online donations spreads
your reach
 Even old folks are donating
online (well, starting to…)
 They have to be able to use
their own credit cards
 Older folks distrust PayPal
 Try not to use open-ended
amounts
 Suggest a minimum
 Donate for specific things, like…

4. FUNDRAISE FOR EVERY THING!
 Run / Walk / Bike  Make a personal connection
 Volunteer  Tell a story, use a video
 Birthday  Keep supporters engaged
 Wedding  Update supporters
 Personal Cause  Be compelling
 Tribute  Tell them how their money will
 College Project be used
 Helping an Individual in Need  Allow comments on FB & Twitter
 Other ideas?
crowdrise.com
razoo.com

5. FIRST, YOUR DECISIONS…
 Are donations a large or small piece of your mission?
 Do you want to use a vendor’s merchant account or your
own?
 Does it integrate with your financial software?
 Know what size and volume of donations you expect to get?
 Be realistic
 Does the donation form need to look like your website?
 How easy/hard will it be for you to import donations into
your donor database?
 What critical features do you need?
 Memorials, gifts, employer matching, recurring gifts, eChecks, outside
N.A.?

6. ONLINE DONATION SITES
 Integrate into your site  Crowdfunding Sites
 Click and Pledge  Kickstarter.com
 Network for Good  StartSomeGood.com
 PayPal  Indiegogo.com
 Google Checkout  Rockethub.com
 Amazon Payments  Pozible.com
 Which do YOU use?  Causes.com
 Razoo.com
 Crowdrise.com
 www.crowdfunding-
website-reviews.com/

7. CROWDFUNDING
 Crowdfunding uses social media and an online donation
page to fund a project (GoFundMe.com)
 Similar to DonorsChoose.org but project specific

8. HOW CROWDFUNDING WORKS
Create your site
Share with friends
Collect online
donations
Track results
Tools
 Widgets
 Sharing (FB, email, Twitter)
 Send updates

9. HOW DO THESE SERVICES MAKE MONEY?
 They charge you for
 Setup fee
 Monthly fee for merchant account
 Percentage rate on credit card sales
 Per-transaction fee
 Hidden fees, like creating your
webpage

10. SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE
 SaaS
 Software as a Service means going to a website, using a tool, and
copying some code back to your website.
 We call this “integrating” or “embedding”
 Cost of SaaS
 Some is free
 Some is kinda free (limits)
 Some costs a fee (‘rentware’)

11. FUNDRAISING SAAS
Scenario 1 Easy Method:
 Get a payment tool  PayPal: 501(c)(3) rate is 2.7%
 PayPal or Google Checkout  If yours is higher, call
 Get a form tool like Jotform  Jotform: free for 10
 Jotform is reasonably priced donations/payments per
month
 Never store credit card
numbers on your website or  Make a Jotform
server!  Integrate it in your website
 Put your donate page online!

12. BUILD A JOTFORM FORM

13. HOW DOES JOTFORM WORK?
At Jotform.com What You Do
1. Get a Jotform account 1. Integrate into your site
2. Build a form 2. Get “embed” code
3. (Have PayPal account) 3. Paste code onto your
4. Put PayPal info into webpage & publish
Jotform 4. Later, update the form
5. Save form at Jotform
5. Website automagically
updates!

14. EMBED MEANS “PASTE”
1. Copy the code
2. Go to your webpage
3. Paste the code
4. Save and publish your
page
5. View your page
Issues? Fix them at Jotform
and not on your webpage.
http://techtriad.com/cs2012/form.php

15. NETWORK FOR GOOD
 PROS
 Network for Good does almost
all work for you
 They handle credit card
processing
 They build a page that looks like
your site
 CONSIDERATIONS
 Can be expensive
 Lowest package: $49.99/month
+ $200 setup fee
 3% fee per transaction
 SINGLE donation page

16. RECURRING GIFTS
 Recurring donations are long-term
 Life gifts, stock transfers, life insurance – all long-term gifts
 The time to encourage long-term gifts is BEFORE someone
passes away, so…

17. LEAD INTO DONATIONS
 Take visitors to a page before donations OR
 Put text above your donation
 People do not “just give money”
 People want something in return
 IDEAS
 In honor of
 In memory of
 Celebrating (occasion)
 Others?
 Send an acknowledgement card (a nice one, please)
 Who do you send the card to?

18. COLLECT INFORMATION
What makes a good form?
1. Short & easy
2. Fast to complete
3. *Required fields
4. But not too many
5. Get the info you
need, avoid
duplicates

19. THINGS TO DO EVERY DAY
Collect email Tell your story on your
addresses website. Be clear.
Make email lists Be concise
UPDATE lists THANK DONORS
Get a big DONATE electronically
NOW button Leverage social media
Constant Contact capture tool is a small
program that lets you update your lists
from your desktop.

20. A WORD ABOUT BLAST EMAILS
What gets a response? Biggest email mistakes
 Calls to action  I get one a week!
 Humor or cleverness  They’re too long
 Video beats text  They’re boring
 Targeted lists  No links
 Special link just for that  No call to action
campaign  No new information
 Quality website  GIVE US MONEY!
MailChimp.com is FREE if you have <2,000 subscribers and send
<12,000 emails per month. Not as many features as Constant Contact.

21. FIND ME EVERYWHERE
Dr. Sue Polinsky
President, TechTriad, Inc.
Phone: 336-852-4321
Email: sue@techtriad.com
Twitter: @suepolinsky, techtriad
Facebook:
facebook.com/suepolinsky
facebook.com/techtriad
Google+: spolinsky@gmail.com
LinkedIn: suepolinsky
4Square: suepolinsky